Aphids and Milkweed

>>>>Please Help,  My milkweed is infested with aphids and there is caterpillars on the plant. What do I do? I have a 2500 square foot butterfly garden and the aphids are only on the milkweed.  I need to feed monarchs that are in my 4 foot square butterfly cage also.<<<<

Aphids are a nightmare! When they first start and you don't think they can do much damage but they can destroy the growing tips of milkweed and oleander plants.  The milkweed/oleander aphid is not native to the US and give live birth - without mating.  From what we understand, there are ZERO males of this species in the wild in the US.

It is said that when aphids are not available, however, that some aphid predators will eat Monarch and Queen young caterpillars.

There are many natural predators but of course they don't keep them under total control.  Green lacewings, hover flies, and lady bug nymphs are only a few of their natural predators. 

Insecticidal soap or Malathion can kill aphids.  We highly recommend removing caterpillars from the plants before treating the plants.  Cover the plants with a sheet for 1/2 hour, remove the sheet, and rinse thoroughly.  After a thorough rinse, the caterpillars can be safely returned to the plants. 

~Edith

Cassius and Ceraunus Blue Butterfly Eggs and Caterpillars; How to Find Them in Your Yard

Continuing to answer the question about finding eggs and caterpillars in one's yard, we move to Cassius Blue and Ceraunus Blue butterflies. Both are beautiful little butterflies. The males are brilliant blue on the inside of their wings. The females have less blue.

Ceraunus Blue butterfly, first photo. Cassius Blue butterfly, second photo.

Marc and Maria Minno, in their book Florida Butterfly Gardening, share a tip to find these caterpillars. Simply gather flower buds of their host plants, place the buds in a plastic container, and check for frass (caterpillar excrement) the next day. If there is frass, there is a caterpillar!

Eggs of the Ceraunus Blue butterfly are pale blue and will be found on Hairy Indigo and other Indigofera sp plants. Eggs of the Cassius Blue butterfly are cream/white and will be found on the flower buds of Leadwort (Plumbago sp) plants.

The green caterpillar blends in with the flower buds so well that it is nearly impossible to see these tiny caterpillars. Fully grown and ready to pupate, they may be as large as one inch long. An intense study of the flower buds can still fail to reveal the caterpillar.


Once flower buds of the host plant are placed into a plastic container, wait one day. If frass is evident the next day, you know a caterpillar is also in the container.

The paper towel was added to absorb moisture from the flower buds.

Happy Hunting!

Find Viceroy and Red-Spotted Purple Butterfly Eggs and Caterpillars

"How can I find butterfly eggs and caterpillars in my yard?"



Wow! What a wonderful question. The answer can take days to write so we'll take them one or two species at a time.

Viceroy and Red-Spotted Purple butterflies can be attracted to your yard with fruit. They will feed on flower nectar and decaying fruit. A bird suet feeder, an apple, a fruit tree; nearly any type of fruit is acceptable to these beautiful winged creatures.

Viceroy butterflies lay eggs on willow leaves. Red-Spotted Purple butterflies lay eggs on willow or black cherry leaves.

The female butterfly of these two species lands on a leaf, turns around, and backs down until her abdomen touches a point of the leaf. The point is normally the tip of the leaf. If a leaf has been torn, the point could be another tip of the leaf, on the side of the leaf. When searching for eggs, look on the tips of the leaves as well as jagged edges. Almost all eggs will be found on the tip of the leaf.

The egg is green. Through a microscope, the egg resembles a sand spur. It has points all over the outside of the egg.


A young caterpillar will start eating the tip of the leaf. It will take its frass (excrement) and add a small bit to the tip of the leaf vein. When not eating, the caterpillar will rest on the extended leaf vein (excrement) and as it grows, it rests on the leaf vein.

As the caterpillar continues to grow (multiplying its hatchling weight by 2,500) it grows too large to rest upon a leaf vein. It begins to eat so much, it will eat several leaves per day. At this point it will rest on the twig of the tree. A larger caterpillar may be brown or green. It blends in well with the tree itself and is difficult to spot until one develops an 'eye' for caterpillars.

In the fall, before the leaves drop, a Viceroy or Red-Spotted Purple caterpillar that is approximately 3/4" long will eat a little over half a leaf. It will then sew the leaf to the twig with silk from its spinnerets (located under its mouth). It will next lay a thick layer of silk from side to side of the leaf, starting with the petiole, where the leaf 'stem' joins the leaf itself. As the silk dries, it contracts and draws the edges of the leaf together to form a tube that is open at one end. The caterpillar will crawl into this tube when days become very short (and nights become long). By this time, fall has arrived and leaves have started falling off the trees. The tube, called a hibernaculum, will not fall from the twig simply because the caterpillar literally sewed it to the twig.
It survives freezing temperatures for days at this point because it has gone into diapause. Sorbitol and glycerol are in the caterpillars blood, preventing it from freezing, like anti-freeze. When the days become longer (and nights shorter) fresh leaves will grow on the tree. The caterpillar will crawl backward out of the hibernaculum to eat these fresh leaves. It will return to the hibernaculum when resting until it grows too large for the tiny leaf tube.

So ....
~ Eggs; look on the tips of leaves, first checking younger leaves before looking at older leaves.
~ Caterpillars spring and summer and early fall; look on the tips of leaves for a young hatchling caterpillar and on the leaf vein for caterpillars a little older. Look on twigs for larger caterpillars.
~ Caterpillars in late fall and winter; look for hibernaculums on bare twigs. If a hibernaculum is found, a small ribbon can be tied 12 - 24 inches from the hibernaculum. In the spring, when fresh leaves are growing, the area around the hibernaculum should be checked almost daily for a young caterpillar. If a hibernaculum with a caterpillar is taken indoors in the winter, the caterpillar can become dehydrated from the dry indoor air and/or the longer periods of light indoors may cause it to come out of diapause. Without fresh leaves to eat, it will starve.

Happy hunting for Viceroy and Red-spotted Purple butterfly eggs and caterpillars!
(Watch for a post soon detailing how to tell the difference between Viceroy and Red-Spotted Purple caterpillars. Hint; it's the spikes on the humps!)

Caterpillar Instars

"I hear the term 'instar' often when people talk about Monarch caterpillars. What does this term mean, 'first instar' or 'second instar'?"

A caterpillars' skin doesn't grow. When the caterpillar grows too large for its skin, it must crawl out of its old skin (actually a cuticle, not a living skin)to continue to grow. Underneath its old skin is a loose baggier new skin that will stretch only to a certain point before the caterpillar must crawl out of it.

Looking at the photo with a large caterpillar and a tiny one on the right, it is very evident that the tiny caterpillar on the right could never grow to become the larger caterpillar if its skin didn't grow OR if it didn't crawl out of its old skin and have a larger skin underneath. The smaller caterpillar is first instar. The larger caterpillar is fifth instar, about to become a chrysalis.

Caterpillars crawl out of thier skin four times. This process is called 'molt'.

The time period between molts is called an 'instar'. Because Monarch caterpillars molt four times, they have five instars.

1st instar; hatched out of its egg
2nd instar; after the first molt
3rd instar; after the second molt
4th instar; after the third molt
5th instar; after the fourth molt and before becoming a chrysalis.

The last time it sheds its skin is when it pupates into a chrysalis.

The instar of a Monarch caterpillar is measured by its head capsule, not the size of the caterpillar. If a caterpillar doesn't eat much, it will be smaller during an instar.

Tiny caterpillars, hanging by an invisible string ...

"I have a milkweed plant in my garden, and im sure that there arent any pesticides on it or anything. A monarch comes and lays her eggs on the leaves, and i check on them and they look fine. The caterpillars hatch, but they look tinier than i think they're suppose to be. Then a couple of hours later, i look and the baby caterpillar is hanging from an invisible string, and its either dead, or will be in the morning. I'm not sure if its because of wasps, i know there are some lingering around the plant, but i really need some help. How can I save the eggs from the wasps? I cant afford a $30 sock/net thing to put around the plant. PLEASE help! Thank you very much. I would appreciate your suggestions. I am very concerned about the poor little caterpillars."

It's wonderful to hear from someone else who is so concerned about caterpillars. That concern is what turned me into a butterfly farmer. Welcome to the world of worrying about nearly invisible caterpillars and monsterous predators.

On the dime above, two Monarch eggs rest and one hatchling Monarch caterpillar crawls around. If you take a dime out of your pocket and look at it, you can realize how tiny the hatchling really is!

BUT ... a hatchling caterpillar is so tiny it is nearly invisible. I has to be small to fit inside the egg. It eats its way out and doubles in size nearly every day. In fourteen warm summer days, it gains weight over 2,500 times its original hatchling weight. At first, though, it is tiny.

The invisible thread is webbing from its spinnerets. The spinnerets are located under its head, where we have a neck. It lays a line of silk when it travels. When the plant is bumped or a predator comes by, it can drop from the leaf and suspend by its silk thread. It will slowly crawl back up the thread, an amazing sight to watch.


Wasps will kill caterpillars and eat them or carry them away. The only ways to protect them is to enclose the plant in a fine net (like sheet curtain material) or move the caterpillars and some leaves indoors. If you move them indoors, you need to either give them a safe milkweed plant to eat (like you are growing) or add leaves to the container every day. Sleeves can be expensive so simply make one with glue and a piece of fine material. Slide it over the plant or a branch with the caterpillars inside and tie it tightly shut on both ends. When the caterpillar(s) eat the leaves, move the net and caterpillars to another branch or plant.

Nature only allows one or two eggs laid to become adult butterflies. We should expect to lose caterpillars in our gardens. We should expect to see wasps, spiders, lizards, praying mantis, and other predators to carry away our caterpillars. But it is not something that many of us can accept. So we fight it!

Didn't become a full chrysalis; what happened?

"I'm raising Monarch caterpillars inside, and the last two times the caterpillars formed a J and went to shed their last skin, the skin did not fully come off, and the chrysalis did not fully emerge, only the very bottom of it, and they both died before the skin fully came off. Only the very tip of the green chrysalis could be seen, with the dead caterpillar was dangling there with most of his skin on."

I assume your caterpillar/pupa looked somewhat like the first photo. Several things can cause this. According to Dr. Urqhart, a silk strand caught around the J'ing caterpillar can cause it. Sometimes it is simply too weak or it may have other problems. This is common. It is heartbreaking, but it happens a lot.



"Underneath one of them was a little puddle of green fluid, and the other one's abdomen seemed very squishy and liquidy, like there wasn't a chrysalis to come out, only liquid there."

Look at the second photo. The green fluid is blood. Another caterpillar crawled on this one and tore the skin slightly before it pupated. When it was pupating, it pupated at the tear which resulted in a deformed pupa.

It IS squishy. This is normal! When it first pupates, it is basically gel with a cuticle. This gel is already preformed in some ways - you can see the antennae, legs, proboscis, wings, and more. Note the photo with these parts labeled. After an hour, it will have slowly reshaped into the classic Monarch chrysalis shape.



"I had touched both of them one time to get them back into the cage because they wandered off, but just by letting them crawl on a piece of paper and putting them in there. What do you think happened?"

It is safe to touch caterpillars if YOU ARE GENTLE. If one has started laying a silk mat, it should be left alone. If one leaves the plant in a rearing container and has not escaped the container, it should be left alone. They leave to molt (and should be left alone) and they leave the plant to pupate (and should be left alone). They can find their way back as long as they are inside the container with the plant.

"I'm very upset and I've been doing everything I can to keep these caterpillars healthy!!! Any suggestions you have would be really appreciated."

First, realize that butterflies have a rough time in nature. Most likely the problem is NOT your fault.

Nature is deadly. Only 1 or 2 out of 100 eggs will become an adult butterfly. Disease is a serious issue in nature. Between predators, parasitoids, disease, windshields, weather, and more ... very few become adult butterflies.

Because of the prevalence of disease in nature, ALWAYS disinfect a rearing container between batches of caterpillars. If your last batch of caterpillars did fine, still disinfect the containers and everything else that you touch or touches caterpillars. It is safest.

Enjoy and please let us know if we can do anything to help you.

Proper Environment for Butterflies on a Deck or Enclosure

"Can I some how adopt butterflies and you would be able to give me the proper living environment as well as ingredients that will fill them properly? Deck(from the sides)."

First, remember that their average life as an adult is only two weeks. Don't expect them to live for a long time.

Adult butterflies need several things:

Light; if the light is too bright on one side of the screened deck, they will fly to that side and sit, not feeding or flying. Light should be equal from more than one side or that side should have shade added. Without adequate light, they will just sit and roost - doing nothing. If they sit all day, they need more light.

Warmth; butterflies are cold blooded and need temperatures in the upper sixties to the eighties to fly. Too hot and they'll simply sit. Too cold and they'll simply sit. Too extremely hot or cold and they may die.

Food; flower nectar is excellent. If enough flowers cannot be maintained on the deck, add fruit and/or sugar water or Gatorade. If the butterflies do not eat themselves, it may be necessary to start them eating by handfeeding them.

Humidity; dry air kills butterflies. A humidifier, fogger, or little fountain adds moisture to the air.

NO pesticides; butterflies are insects and pesticides kill them.

Predators; ants, roaches, spiders, and other predators ride in flower pots and on plants and will be delighted with the meal you provide. Monitor carefully for predators.

Enjoy!

Wriggling Butterfly Chrysalids

"Our Painted Lady caterpillars made chrysalises yesterday. Today one of them was wiggling like crazy for a little more than a minute. Could you tell us why?"

Many butterfly and moth chrysalises (pupae) wriggle in response to touch or movement. It is assumed that this is a natural instinctive response that discourages predators and parasitoids.

Some butterfly chrysalises do not have a jointed abdominal segment. Monarch and Queen chrysalises are not jointed and cannot move. Species that are jointed often move.

Click here to see Painted Lady chrysalises wiggle, hundreds of them! Other butterfly species like Julia, Gulf Fritillary, Tawny Emperor, Hackberry Emperor, American Lady, and especially Red Admiral chrysalises are extremely active when touched by anything. A Red Admiral chrysalis that has been laid on a table will often wiggle for minutes, often working itself off the table and falling to the floor.

People often think that this wiggling is a sign that that the adult butterfly is about to emerge. This is is an understandable misconception.

If you are in an area of the world where you can raise Julia butterflies, listen to their chrysalises when they move. They squeak!

What Instar is a Monarch Caterpillar In?

"I was looking for information on what monarch "instar" stages are? How you tell what stage they are in etc.?"

When a caterpillar outgrows its skin, it crawls out of it, called molting. An 'instar' is the time period between molts. Caterpillar age is usually referred to as 'instars' while people age is referred to in 'years'.

The instar of a caterpillar is determined by measuring the head capsule. The head capsule is on the 'face' of the caterpillar and it never grows. When a caterpillar molts, it removes the old head capsule and has a new larger one in place of it.

1st instar – 0.6mm; 2nd instar – 0.8mm; 3rd instar – 0.9mm (some sources state 1.5mm); 4th instar – 2.2mm; 5th instar – 3.5mm

Newsletter Subscription and 100th Subscriber Gift

>>>Re: every 100th subscriber AND the person who recommends Butterflies! to that subscriber receives a gift from Shady Oak Butterfly Farm.<<<

"How do you know when a person recommends someone to your newsletter? There is no link in the newsletter for us to recommend someone."

Each time we email the 100th subscriber to ask who recommended that they subscribe to the newsletter. We then ship a gift to both the subscriber and the person who recommended the newsletter.

I'll include a link in the next newsletter. It's something I hadn't thought about, I'm sorry. A page about the newsletter with a link to subscribe is located here.

OE in Monarch Caterpillars

"I live just outside of Orlando and have been a butterfly garden enthusiast for a few years. This year I have collecting cats from my and a relatives butterfly gardens' milkweed plants and raising them in butterfly pavilions. I feed them milkweed from my yard and that I purchase from a local nursery. I have had some issues with OE and need some advise. My wish is to contribute to the Monarch conservation movement and want to make sure I have proper information. Is there any way to tell if a cat I collect has OE? I've read info about testing adult butterflies and of the bleach solution for eggs but little about the cats themselves which is usually when I get them. Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated."

There isn’t a way to tell definitely if a cat has OE or not without killing it and checking it through a high powered microscope. Some people report that OE in cats will cause splotching but we found that other things also cause the same type of splotching. We did isolation tests with spotted/splotched larvae. This was during a time of feeding larvae milkweed infected with plant pests like thrips. The Monarchs with spots and splotches emerged without OE. Out of the thousands we raised each week, none had OE.

(OE is the abbreviation for Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, a protozoa disease that affects Monarch, Queen, and Soldier butterflies and other butterflies in the Danaus family. OE is MUCH easier to say than Ophyrocystis elektroscirrha!)

It is the cats that contract the disease – the cat has to eat spores to become infected. One cat can’t give it to another cat – the spores are only transferable from adult butterflies to another butterfly or object – as surface contamination. When a cat EATS the spore, it contracts OE. A pupa or adult cannot contract the disease although an adult can become surface contaminated by mating with an infected adult butterfly. Somewhat like touching a door handle after someone with cold pathogens on their hands touch it – the pathogens can contaminate surfaces such as bodies and plant leaves. Spores fall off like pixie dust when infected adult butterflies fly.

You can tell, sometimes, if a pupa is heavily infected. It does show splotching that I’ve not seen otherwise. Any I’ve had with these splotches (pupae) were OE infected.

The photo above is OE infected. Notice the splotching?

The photo below is of pupae that are not infected. Notice the smoother green color near the cremaster area?


Of course, a light infection won’t show so it always pays to check adults to be sure.

On the encouraging side, it is reported that in the southern tip of Florida, 85% of all Monarchs are reported to be OE infected. If it was as deadly in the wild as we are often led to believe, the population in southern Florida should be extinct by now. BUT it is deadly in nature … we’ve seen milkweed gardens in Florida that were full of dead pupae – from OE. We know it is deadly and in a rearing operation where Monarch butterflies are kept together and bred together, infection can build up if it is not eliminated. That’s why it’s so important for those who raise Monarchs and Queens and mate captive breeding stock to check for OE and to disinfect eggs. We don’t raise them like nature with a 98% death rate BEFORE they become adults – we raise them to have a high survival ratio!

I imagine you already do this but just in case, remember to always disinfect a pavilion after one set of cats are raised in it. OE is only one disease and is one of the least dangerous dangerous. Some other diseases are far worse than OE and they can be transferred from cat to cat.

You can wash milkweed with a light bleach solution and rinse thoroughly before putting cats on it. That will help with surface contamination of milkweed leaves – one of the primary sources of infection. The other source is spores on the eggs themselves. When the cat eats its way out of the egg, it eats spores that the adult female Monarch butterfly left on the egg surface when she laid the egg.

The same goes for Queens too. Queen cats are so cool – one of my very favorite larvae.

Orange-barred Sulphur caterpillar

"After visiting your farm last summer, we came home and planted a cassia tree in our back yard. About 2 weeks ago we noticed some very small catapillars, green, long and slim. We brought them in and now two weeks later they are over two inches long. They have been feeding on cassia leaves all this time. Using the internet and books we have identified them as the larva of the Orange-barred sulphur.
Do you agree??"

Absolutely! It makes a huge yellow butterfly with orange spots on the topside of its wings.

Also using cassia plants are Cloudless Sulphur and Sleepy Orange caterpillars.

Luna Moth

"I am from Minnesota and look what showed up at one of our bonfires a few weeks ago. I did a search for green moth with eyes on wings and I got you. How about that, I love the web! Can you tell me some things about this moth. I would like to share it with all the people that saw it that night."




It is a Luna moth and a beauty, isn’t it?

It never eats as an adult – it has NO mouth parts. It hatches and eats one of several plants. I use Sweet Gum to feed the caterpillars. They can’t hurt you. They make a cocoon and pupate into a pupa inside the cocoon. They then emerge as adults with no mouthparts, pair and then die in about one week.

They are one of the most recognized moths – used in the Lunesta commercials.

Although silk moth cocoons are used to make silk thread, Luna moth cocoon silk is too fine for use for that purpose.

Snout caterpillar on hackberry tree

"I LOOKED AT PICTURES OF THE EMPEROR CATERPILLER AND THE ONE I HAVE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE EITHER ONE. I AM SEND YOU A PICTURE OF THE ONE I FOUND IN THE HACKBERRY TREE, HOPE ITS GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU TO HELP ME. THERE ARE BLACK SPECKLES ON THE SIDE WHERE THE YELLOWISH STRIPE IS AND IT HAS A LIGHT YELLOWISH GREEN HEAD. IF THIS IS ANY HELP I LIVE IN SOUTH CAROLINA."


Terry,

You have found an American Snout caterpillar. Congratulations!

It's an unusual butterfly, with long beaklike palpi on either side of its proboscis, creating a snout look.

Found a Giant Swallowtail caterpillar

"Hi I found a giant swallowtail caterpillar and I brought it home with me. I would like to know which would be an appropriate host plant so it could survive and I could see it turn into a butterfly."

Giant Swallowtail caterpillars are called 'Orange Dogs' because they eat citrus trees. They also eat other plants in the citrus family.
They will also eat rue. Normally, they won't easily change from other plants to rue so if you find one on a citrus tree, it is best to keep feeding it leaves from the same tree.

Learn more at Giant Swallowtail Butterfly.

WHAT IS THE LIFETIME OF BUTTERFLIES?

"WHAT IS THE LIFETIME OF BUTTERFLIES?"

If you include its life as a 'child' butterfly and 'teenager' butterfly (caterpillar and chrysalis) it lives from five to eight weeks.

An adult butterfly lives an average of two weeks in the summer. In cool spring and fall temperatures, they may average a slightly longer life. Adult butterflies in diapause (overwintering as an adult) may live for months. The length of time may vary slightly from species to species. Zebra Longwing adults live for several months.

Caterpillar on milkweed with extra antennae?

"I have found on my milkweed, among "normal" monarch cats, a caterpillar with a slightly different color pattern and an extra set of antennae about mid-back. Please forgive my ignorance, but what is this?"

You have found a Queen butterfly caterpillar. Queen butterflies are also in the Danaus family, like Monarch butterflies. In the extreme south, Soldier butterflies can also be found.

Learn more about Queen butterflies!

Why hasn't my swallowtail emerged from its chrysalis?

"Why hasn't my swallowtail butterfly emerged from its chrysalis (pupa - cocoon)?

This question is difficult to answer as it is asked. First, there are a few questions that need to be answered.
1. What species of butterfly?
2. How long has it been since it pupated?
3. Where has it been held since it pupated? (Indoors, garage, etc)
4. What type of humidity is near the chrysalis? (living plant, spraying it with water, etc)
5. The chrysalis is in how many hours of light?
6. Does the segmented abdomen move it you apply GENTLE pressure to the side of the abdomen?
7. If so, does the abdomen move back after you apply pressure?
8. Does the chrysalis feel like it weighs normal or is it super light?
9. Is there a tiny hole in the chrysalis? Have you seen small 'gnats' near it?

So ... why these questions? Let's take them one by one.

1. Generally, it helps us understand more about the butterfly if we know which species we are discussing.

2. If it pupated last week, it could simply be taking a while. Swallowtails are not known for their emergence to be as predictable as other species of butterflies. If it has been a month or more, we need to look further into the situation.

3. If it has been in an air conditioned or heated building or in an area without humidity, it may have dehydrated. If it is in direct sun or a in a bright window, it may become LITERALLY cooked due to the heat from direct sun, especially through glass. (See next answer.)

4. Assuming it is where it could become dehydrated, we need to know if a source of humidity is near the chrysalis. If you has a living plant with the chrysalis, the plant will probably add the needed humidity to the air. If you are spraying it with water two times a day, it should not dehydrate. If a wet sponge or other source of evaporating water is with the chrysalis, it should not be dehydrated.

5. If a chrysalis is in less than 14 hours of light, it may still be in diapause. Swallowtail butterflies spend the winter as a chrysalis and can stay a chrysalis for 9 months and more if the day length where the chrysalis is located isn't 14 hours or more.

DO NOT put it in direct sun. It should be in bright light but NEVER direct sun. It can be kept on a table NEAR a window IF the table receives 14 hours or more light. Artificial light is adequate. Our farm's swallowtail pupae are never placed in sunlight but are kept in a lab with ONLY fluorescent lighting. NOTE: diapause is determined by the length of daylight or night, NOT by temperature.

6. A dead swallowtail chrysalis' abdomen will be frozen in place and cannot be moved when GENTLE pressure is applied at the jointed part of the chrysalis. If it moves, the tissue between the segments should be light in color. (See #9)

7. If it does move, it should move back to it's normal position after pressure is released. (See #9)

8. If the chrysalis is dehydrated, it will feel as light as a feather or cotton ball. The butterfly inside will be totally dehydrated.

9. Chalcid wasps are parasitoids. They lay eggs inside a soft chrysalis and eat the chrysalis from the inside out. If a chrysalis is infected with chalcid wasps that have not yet emerged, the tissue between the abdominal segments will lose the normal light color and will become dark.

Mature chalcid wasps eat a tiny hole in the chrysalis and emerge. A tiny hole in a chrysalis is a sign that the maturing butterfly inside was food for maturing chalcid wasps and they have emerged.

If a chrysalis is infected with chalcid wasps, it is NOT a butterfly chrysalis any longer. It is a shell for chalcid wasp larvae or pupae.

Side note: A butterfly does not make a cocoon. Some moths make cocoons. Learn more about cocoons here.

If the above doesn't help with your question about your chrysalis, please feel free to write to edith@buyabutterfly.com with your questions about your chrysalis or any other butterfly question.